Windrose surpasses Crimson Desert and Slay the Spire 2 as players are driven to stranger tides

Windrose, a co-op pirate adventure game that came out into early access a few days ago, is already one of Steam's most popular titles, having surpassed giants like Crimson Desert and Slay the Spire 2 to claim a spot among Valve's top three most-played games.

With a concurrent player peak of 204,000, Windrose lags behind only Valve's own games, Dota 2 and Counter-Strike 2 at the time of writing, which are almost always the top two spots on the platform. What's surprising about this number isn't that it's an indie game made by a small but dedicated team, but that it launched to a quarter of that number on release day, continuously growing since.

Windrose puts you in the boots of a pirate captain who, amid mysterious events, was deprived of their ship and thrown onto a desolate island. Your task, and that of your three or more friends, is to find out what happened and reclaim your former glory as a true king of the seven seas. The game is set during the Golden Age of Piracy, i.e., the early 1700s, and has incredibly immersive naval navigation and combat and simulation that truly makes it feel like you're a sailor from that era.

Windrose is also a survival crafting game, which could at least partially explain why it's so popular, as you're tasked with discovering and creating your own pirate cove using deep building and crafting mechanics. Whether it's a small log house by the shore or an elaborate pirate castle built around a mountain, you can make it in Windrose. On top of that, you get and make boats, fight other pirates and strange creatures, and go on adventures across the West Indies either alone or with your own crew (of up to eight members).

Ever since I played its exceptional demo, Windrose has kept me interested to no end, and I continue having fun in the game despite its early access model. There is so much content in there that you're going to get updates way before you run out of stuff to do, meaning you can just get stuck in and enjoy and worry not about ever seeing the game over screen.

The post Windrose surpasses Crimson Desert and Slay the Spire 2 as players are driven to stranger tides appeared first on Destructoid.